Caleb Boomer (1698-1770)

The fifth child of Matthew Boomer Jr. & Hannah Church, Caleb Boomer was born in Freetown, Massachusetts where his parents were married. Caleb was somewhat fortunate, which can be seen in his coming into a well-established and somewhat wealthy Church family and his long life (he lived to be 72). He is, however, mentioned very little as a result of this pleasant mediocrity (in comparison to other Boomer escapades). On this page, I outline what I have learned of this little mentioned figure.

At the time of his birth on March 16, 1698, Caleb’s family resided in Assonet, which, like Fall River (another important site of early Boomer history), was a village within Freetown. The town was a place of fishing and farming that was established on an old salt marsh in 1659 by the Plymouth Colony. His father, Matthew Boomer Jr., was a constable in Freetown and owned land inherited from his own father (Matthew Boomer I, Caleb’s grandfather, and first settler in Fall River) in Westerly (RI.) and Fall River (MA.). All of this to say that Caleb was born into a pioneering family of landowners and was set to inherit both the strong reputation and the wealth of his parents and grandparents.

Caleb’s siblings were also privileged and a few achieved some measure of power within their societies. For example, his elder sister Hannah (b. 1692) married John Jenks when she was a 17-year-old woman, and while she died at age 26, her 3 children were well provided for. Her husband was a member of a powerful Rhode Island family and who belonged to the house of magistrates. Caleb’s younger brother Joshua Boomer (1702-1773) a selectman of Freetown in 1754-55. Many other siblings inherited their father’s land.

On August 19, 1725, Caleb married Sarah Martin. She was the daughter of John Martin and Mercy Hayward, and the granddaughter of John Martin who came over from England in 1663 or 1665 with his father. He was a weaver by trade, but was eventually made constable of Swansea (where he lived) and was elected by the General Court of Plymouth as the surveyor of highways.   This Martin family history is not far from that of the Boomer family, and so it seems that Caleb and Sarah must have had much in common.

The couple, like many early settlers among the Massachusetts Bay Colony, spent much of their time working their land and raising their family. I have not found any profession that Caleb may have had, and to me this signals that he likely preferred to farm the land he inherited from his father in Freetown as opposed to assuming powerful civil or governmental positions. Together they had seven children who I will describe with the knowledge I have from the text Sheffield, Dagget and Allied Families.

The first child born to Caleb and Sarah was less than a year after their marriage.  Joanna Boomer was born June 30, 1726 in Assonet, as were her other siblings. She never married and there is little knowledge of her life as she had no descendants to carry along her story. Caleb Boomer Jr. was born August 29, 1728 and married a woman named Thankful Fox in 1749. The same year as Caleb Jr. married, his younger sister, Sarah (born on August 3, 1730) married a man named Thomas West. Martin Boomer, their fourth child, was born December 25, 1732. He married Jemima Shepard and had at least one child with her. As per his brother Caleb Jr.’s will in 1770, along with the inheritance of £20, he was to care for his eldest sister Joanna who never married. Martin became a military man: first a private in Captain Durfee’s company (1778), then in Captain Brightman’s company (1780), in colonel Hathaway’s regiment, and lastly in the Rhode Island Alarm. Their fifth child, was Joshua Boomer who was born on October 6, 1734. In 1758 he married Rebecca Elsberry and had a family of 5 children that settled north of the border in Nova Scotia. Matthew Boomer, their sixth child, is my 5th great-grandfather. Their last child was Daniel Boomer, who was born in 1739.

This large family inherited much from their father Caleb in his will which was verified in 1770. Caleb died in Freetown that year, his wife Sarah predeceasing him in 1757 (age 54).